The New Coalition

The Irish People, The voice of Irish Republicanism in
America, 11 January 1995

THE NEW COALITION

The new government in Dublin will probably continue most of the
policies set out by the previous Fianna Fail/Labour administration. It
will bring a strong British/Unionist bias to future dealings on the
North, but democrats there can probably deal adequately with this. The
idea is growing that northerners should campaign against members of
the Dublin government-in their own constituencies, if necessary . The
economic future of Ireland, including that of the northeast, which has
been ruined by inefficiency and bad management, depends upon stability
and cooperation.

Within the new Dublin administration, however, there are sources of
future tension. The most obvious is the uneasiness of the alliance
between Democratic Left (once the Republican Clubs, then Official Sinn
Fein, then Sinn Fein the Workers Party, then the Workers Party,
finally the Democratic Left) and Fine Gael (descended from the Irish
fascist movement). This alliance will probably be resented by members
of both Fine Gael and Democratic Left who had been led to believe they
were natural political opponents.

Prionsias de Rossa, leader of the Democratic Left, has been given the
ministry responsible for social welfare. Funding for this ministry is
bound to be far below what his constituents would want, and so de
Rossa will probably be blamed for whatever shortcomings welfare
provisions may suffer under the new government. Perhaps this is one
reason why he was given this post.

LEFT TO RIGHT

Many Labour Party members do not favor a shift to the left, preferring
Labour to be respectably slightly left of center, as it has been under
Spring. Spring carried out a strong campaign to remove the real
left-wing from the party some years ago, at much the same time as the
British Labour Party was purging its left wing, and those who helped
or favored him in this may not take too kindly to what they see as the
introduction of somebody else's left wing through a side door,
namely Democratic Left. It is doubtful, though, if Democratic Left
will insist on any really radical measures in government. Their policy
is more likely to be that of members of the old Workers Party, who
entered bodies like the state broadcasting service, newspapers, labor
unions, etc. Although they often rose to significant positions, they
did not thereby introduce radical policies into the organ izations but
rather accommodated themselves to what was already there.

The institutions they entered and tended to dominate did not move to
the left; the Democratic Left moved to the right. Democratic Left,
which is competing against the Irish Labour Party for the title of the
real left in Irish politics, will find its plans for social welfare
caught within the constraints of a Finance Department presided over by
a Labour minister. One may eventually blame the other for failure to
give the people a better deal, thereby widening the gap between the
two parties.

That is to say, by the ordinary laws of political logic this new
coalition will have stresses and strains which a single-party
government would not have. All the parties involved will have to face
the electorate sooner or later and answer or having created a
coalition with individuals who should be political opponents, with far
different outlooks, philosophies and ideologies. If the coalition
fails, recrimination will be very severe; even if success comes,
recrimination will be there in some form.

NEW PARTY SYSTEM

The best result would be that the people would realize that if the day
of single-party government is over, then the next most sensible and
logical step is for every government in the future to be a coalition
not of two or three parties but of all parties. In Europe, this has
happened from time to time in the form of national governments or
emergency governments. In emergencies it works because it has
to. Perhaps, whatever the outcome of this coalition, the Irish people
may look at the possibility of fixed-term, all-party coalitions as a
way out of what in some European countries is becoming a substantial
crisis brought on by their party systems.

As to whether the present Dublin coalition will hold together or not,
the parties in it have two great aims which could well hold them
together for at least a year in spite of all the differences they may
have.

These are: to have power themselves and to keep Fianna Fail out of
power; and by so doing, help to destroy both republicanism and
nationalism. With that political cement to bind them together,
survival, but not necessarily prosperity, may be assured at least for
a while.